The King of Colored Town Page 5

  “I don’t like the hubs,” Collard declared, and on that I had to agree.

  Spinner hubcaps just do not look right on a pickup.

  Mama and I worked at Mr. Thistle’s nursery that Saturday at the rooting beds. I spent the whole day sticking cuttings of elaeagnus into a damp bed of peat and loamy soil, thinking about nothing but Joe Billy.

  “You definitely are handsome, Miss Priscilla.”

  Nobody had ever called me handsome. Or nice , for that matter. I began to rehearse the details of his appearance. Processed hair, greased back. Narrow head, high forehead. Deep, piercing eyes. Could he play the guitar, I wondered? When would I see him? Or where?! Would it be at school? I didn’t know. He could have been twenty years old, for all I could tell, impressed as I was by Joe Billy’s sophistication. Even a sixteen year-old could drop out of school if he wanted.

  Joe Billy said he was going to Lester’s. Did that mean Lester was expecting him? Or Mr. Raymond? Was Joe Billy just visiting, or would he be staying with the two old bachelors? I had to find out. Could not wait to find out.

  It was the first time in a long time, I can tell you, that I looked forward to hauling water.

  Had to get home, first. Might as well tell you about my house, I guess. And my dog. The house, first. Don’t know who built it, or when. We didn’t rent it. We didn’t exactly own it, either. Whatever claim we enjoyed was established I suppose in usufruct. It was identical to almost every other residence in Colored Town. A shack and porch were fashioned of rough cut cypress and pine, mounted a yard high on loblolly stumps above a grassless yard frequently runneled by rain. A tin roof. There were only two rooms inside and no ceiling, just a span of rough, pine eaves. A kerosene lantern hanged on the tenacula of a ten-penny nail driven through one of those timbers. I was so tall, even at seventeen, that my head would brush its metal base.

  Almost no furniture. A cot for me and an unsheeted mattress where mother slept. Grandma had a real bed and a small chest of drawers in the other room, across from the kitchen. Planks stretched between cement blocks provided more than ample shelving. We had two deerhide chairs that doubled for use in the kitchen or on the porch. We had a sink and slop bucket and out back was the privy shared each morning with a rat snake big as your arm.

  We didn’t have anything like a lawn, only white folks spend that kind of money. But we had dogwood trees, two beautiful dog-woods. And crowding all around were riots of plant life native to northern Florida. There was French Mulberry, and Lady Lupine with its white shaggy hairs. We had bread-straw and scorpion-tale and frog-fruit. Goldenrod and dog fennel. Honeysuckle, of course. A wild and completely untamed tangle of vines and stems and blossoms presented an ever changing landscape for our back porch view. There was always something to catch your eye and what you didn’t see you would surely smell.

  The atmosphere between the Gulf of Mexico and the Suwannee River, always heavy with moisture, was a natural caravan for the transport of odor. Mornings in May could be particularly redolent, a honeysuckle’s sweet aroma competing with pennyroyal or wisteria. Can you identity the smell of carrots that is Queen Anne’s Lace? Add to that the smell of damp earth. Of decaying wood.

  Coming home from work that evening I could smell a country ham, slaughtered locally, smoked and cured with plenty of fat hanging on the rind. Cooking somewhere.

  Not at our house. Ours was a supper of grits and red-eye gravy. Milk was hard to keep without an icebox so we usually drank coffee or sometimes a homemade tea. The Pennyroyal makes a nicely minted tea and normally I would put off hauling water to sip from a Ball jar of grandma’s homemade. Not that evening. That evening I was eager to be off.

  “They a house on fire?”

  “We need water,” I sailed off the porch. “HARD ON!”

  You could hear him coming, claws scratch-scratch-scratching on the pine planked floor. Seconds later a bull-chested mutt halfway between a bulldog and a Republican shot out my screenless window.

  “Well, come on.”

  He turned his head askew, as if I had slapped his nose and turned him sideways.

  “We’re gone to GET WATER. WATER, Hard On.”

  ‘Hard On’ was not so much a sobriquet as a truncation of an earlier name. While still a puppy and nameless, Puddin’ Reed’s little sister poured some honey in my dog’s starboard ear. I wasn’t there to see it happen, but later that night I could see my animal worrying that ear, worrying and worrying it.

  I thought maybe he was hungry so I soaked some cornbread in clabber and gave it to him. Put him in a box to sleep. Middle of the night that puppy starts to yell. Started raising hell. So I went over to see what was the fuss and that’s when I saw the ants. They were in his ear. In and out of his ear, actually. They had smelled the honey and burrowed clear down inside the poor thing’s inner ear.

  I got grandma and we washed out the ear with hydrogen peroxide. Got the honey out with the ants but the ear got infected anyway. Pretty soon the poor mutt was falling down like a drunk. He could not stand erect. Couldn’t look straight at anything, either; he’d try and you could see his eyes jerk horizontally, fast forward, slow back, in the presentation distinctive of nystagmus. Within a day or two those symptoms passed. My dog survived, but lost his hearing on the side of the infected ear. Hence the constant inclination of his puzzled snout.

  “Got a name for him, at least,” Grandma declared after that trial. “We’ll call him Hard of Hearing.”

  But Hard of Hearing got to be a mouthful when you were in a hurry. It was only a matter of time before Puddin’ or Chickenswamp or somebody came up with “Hard On.”

  “Where you at, Hard On? Whutchu doin’, Hard On?”

  That’s how my dog got his name. But there was only one name interested me that evening; I just hoped he would be at his newly adopted home.

  “Be back inna while,” I called out, and hauled the Red Flyer with its unfilled pails toward Mr. Raymond’s. I arrived with my dog earlier than usual. I didn’t see Joe Billy. Didn’t see Lester for that matter, which normally would have been a blessing. I could have asked Mr. Raymond where his new boarder was keeping himself, but there were people all around and if anybody heard me asking after a boy I’d never hear the end of it.

  “Cilla, you sweet on somebody?”

  “Who you sweet on, Cilla?”

  “Hey, but is they sweet on you ?”

  So I didn’t say anything. I waited for Sunday and looked in vain for Joe Billy to attend church. I was slow giving mother her prompts that morning, which earned me a stern admonition from Preacher, but I didn’t care. I went back to Mr. Raymond’s porch again that evening with my Radio Flyer wagon and pails, and this time found Lester ruling the porch from his rocking chair. Still no sign of Joe Billy. Where was he? Gone? Dead? There were perhaps half a dozen women still milling around but I had to know. Finally my turn came to handle the pump.

  “Hello, Sugar Baby.”

  “Mr. Lester.” I pulled my water. “How you doin’?”

  That was a mistake because I never inquired after Lester’s health.

  “I’m steady by jerks,” he replied after a moment. “How ’bout you?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Hope I gave good directions to your visitor.”

  “Visitor?”

  “I believe so. New fellah? Came in on the railroad? Said he was kin to you.”

  “Awww…” Lester settled back in his hickory rocker. “He’s just dog kin.”

  “Stayin’ with you and Mr. Raymond?”

  Lester scowled. “I tole’ him he can sleep on the back porch ’till he get his own place.”

  So he was staying. I kept my eyes on the pump.

  “Well, that’s good of ya’ll, Mr. Lester. That’s a help, surely.”

  “Help to him ,” Lester grunted, and I went home heartened by his unwilling intelligence but wondering whether it was much help. After all, there were only two places I could expect to regularly see Joe Billy—at work or at school. So unless Joe
Billy developed a sudden urge to either raise shrubbery or join the junior class our paths would not cross on any kind of predictable basis.

  I was telling myself all the way home that I should not be disappointed. I had got my hopes up on the basis of a fairytale and should have known better.

  “Come on, Hard On.”

  I got home wanting to cry, but I didn’t have time. Grandma was pacing on the porch.

  “Your mama. Havin’ one o’ her fits.”

  You could never tell when it would happen, or why. Some unseen agent or influence would set her off. The only exorcism we ever tried made things worse.

  “Put up the water,” I said, and went inside.

  She was in our bedroom, on the mattress on the floor. Grandma hung back, wringing her shift.

  “I too old for this chore!”

  “I’ve got her, grandma.”

  “Raise a chile, you get ole, she suppose to take kere o’ you !”

  “I said I got her.”

  “Me here an ole woman raisin’ two chirren, Lawd!”

  “Go on, grandma. There’s water, make some tea. I’ll take care of Mama.”

  Corrie Jean was on the mattress on all-fours, in estrus. Hunching like a dog. When Mama was like that you had to be careful. It was like she was in a waking nightmare, or something, and if you came in on her like that and you touched her in any way, she was likely to turn on you, striking out with hands that, unless at a piano, were curled like talons.

  “FUG ME, FUG ME!”

  “Mama, it’s Cilla.”

  “FUG ME FUG ME!!”

  “Mama, Cilla’s here. Cilla’s right here.”

  I took up a pillow and slowly crouched so she could see me.

  “Remember our song, Mama?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Our song, Mama. Remember?”

  “Song…”

  She was panting like a bitch in heat.

  “Song…”

  “It’s me , Mama. Cilla. Remember our song?”

  “Song, song,” she sing-songed in reply.

  “Sing with me, Mama. Mama? Sing. Come on, now—‘Double your pleasure’…Come on, now…‘Double your pleasure…’”

  “Doubleyourfun,” mother’s head bobbed recognition.

  “That’s right,” I encouraged. “Let’s sing it together, Mama. Mama and Cilla singing.”

  She raised her head.

  “Sing Cilla?”

  “Sure, Mama. ‘Double your pleasure/Double your fun/With DoubleMint, DoubleMint, DoubleMint Gum…’”

  Her head bobbed in time.

  “Double your pleasure, Double your fun…”

  “That’s right, Mama. ‘With DoubleMint, DoubleMint, DoubleMint Gum…’”

  Double your pleasure. Double your fun. Over and over. It didn’t always work. I still don’t know exactly why it ever worked. But something about that simple jingle for chewing gum was, on merciful occasion, a magical mantra for my mother.

  We sang it over and over. Sang it till the words slurred in my mouth. But I could feel her begin to relax. See the taloned hands uncurl. Her eyes, wide with some terror, were low in their lids. Now I could coax her off her hands and knees.

  “Here, Mama.”

  I got her to sit. I decided it wasn’t worth the effort to get her into night-things. She’d just have to sleep in her clothes.

  But now, I knew we would be fine. Once I got her this far, I could put down the pillow, hold her to me. Put her back to me. Her head next to my own. I could feel my mother’s warmth on my new and heavy breasts. She would relax, then. Yes, I could feel her muscles go loose and long. And then a long, melancholy sigh. We just sat there, rocking back and forth.

  Once, long ago, after a fit much like this one, she became lucid. It wasn’t for long. Just moments, really.

  “Cilla!”

  I was so startled, I had almost dropped her.

  “Mama? Is that you?”

  “Isn’t it bedtime, baby?”

  “Yes, Mama. Yes, it is!”

  “Then you best get to sleep.”

  There were only a handful of occasions in my life where mother ever directly addressed me, or even seemed to recognize me. Those moments always came when I was worst prepared to receive them. When I was tired. When I was bone-weary and unresponsive, they came. With no warning or preamble. Out of the blue.

  I hadn’t known what to do. What to say. I didn’t know how long we had. I just held her close to me. Close!

  “Why don’ you sleep with mama, baby?” she said. Perfectly lucid.

  “Oh, Mama! Can I?”

  “Jussss tonight,” she said, and then the awful affliction returned. A glaze passed over my mother’s eyes. She lay slack as burlap once more in my arms and had not spoken to me since.

  She was calm, now. Whatever it was that triggered the awful, recurring terror had run its course. I kissed Corrie Jean on lips wet with drool.

  “Night night, Mama.”

  A small chore, then, to straighten her legs on the mattress, put the pillow, caseless, beneath her head. Smooth her hair. She had wonderful hair, have I mentioned? Soft, not like mine. I then pulled the one sheet over my mama before crawling into my own sheetless bed. I was hungry and had not cleaned myself and I was dead, weary, tired, but I could not expect a restful night’s sleep. Mama would wake once, at least, I knew, before the rooster crowed. Maybe twice. And I would comfort her.

  There would be no railroad dreams this evening.

  Chapter four

  “Hog Cholera Alert for County”

  — The Clarion

  M y country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty. Of thee I sing,” flowed in a beautifully chalked hand across Miss Chandler’s blackboard. Miss Eunice Chandler was my teacher at Kerbo School, Colored Town’s only schoolhouse. Mr. Raymond said the cypress timbers in those rooms were a hundred years old, and had been milled by a black man at Fort McKoon. I don’t know about that. I had visited Fort McKoon, that flinty shelf stretching across the Suwannee and saw no sign of a sawmill. But I could see that my schoolhouse was very old, its beams notched Roman fashion and stacked in walls to rival Fort Ticonderoga. Kerbo School was built to last, but with no conveniences. No electricity. No restrooms. Even the blackboards were add-ons.

  Grades one through twelve matriculated two grades to a room. Miss Chandler started her junior and senior class most every morning with something related to language or reading, usually something learned rote and drilled in class. It almost always started on the board.

  “Miss Priscilla, are you with us?”

  “Yes, Miss Chandler.”

  I was not. I was thinking about the boy at the train depot.

  “I’d appreciate your interest.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  That was just like Miss Chandler, to ask. Now if it was the school principal, Miss Hattie, teaching there wouldn’t be any asking. You didn’t inspect your thoughts in Miss Hattie’s class, or doze off, or betray any hint of inattention or fatigue, else that old sparrow of a woman would wrap a phone book ’round your head. Miss Chandler was as big as Miss Hattie was tiny. She was built heavy in the haunches, like a bear. Her jowls hung with flesh, like a basset hound. Her eyebrows were thick and not level on her forehead. Her nostrils flared wide as a heifer’s.

  “Ugly done got hisself a name, boys,” Pudding said when first he saw Miss Chandler.

  But of course neither Pudding, or anyone else, said anything about Miss Chandler’s face to her face.

  “Miss Cilla,” she was surprisingly light on her feet for such a big woman.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I roused myself.

  “To the board, please.”

  I didn’t want to get up. I was in my period and had no napkins. I had no rags, either. The sanitary napkins I’d slipped inside my shirt at Mr. Land’s SafeWay were so much easier I’d got used to them and forgot to boil rags and so now I’d run out all I had were some strips of linen and moss. I was petrified I would shame my
self. That somebody would see.

  “I have to get up, Miss Chandler?”

  She took one look.

  “You may remain seated, Miss Cilla.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I sighed relief.

  “Let’s all direct our attention to the board, please. ‘My Country Tis Of Thee.’ Cilla, why don’t you start with ‘Of thee I sing.’”